by Josh Hilden
“Little, how do you know they are dead?” He tried to stay as quiet as possible when he asked the question, but he had been a little too loud. He cursed as he heard Jackie moan and start stumbling toward the rest room door. “Shit!” he breathed.
“Kyle, where the hell are you?” She asked.
“Benny and I are locked in the employee bathroom at Toys “R” Us. There is a dead girl that used to fuck me on the other side of the door, and Benny is unconscious from a blow to the head.” It was the first time that he’d said it all out loud. The absurdity of it all hit him square between the eyes. Then he started to laugh, a full throated laugh of amusement. A laugh that released all of the tension he’d been holding back since he saw Mike killed in the parking lot.
Jackie wailed on the other side of the door and started to pound on it.
“Oh knock it the fuck off you spiteful bitch!” Kyle yelled as he laughed so hard tears were running down his face. Jackie pounded and moaned even harder at his encouragement.
“Jesus Christ Kyle, can she get at you?” He heard concern in her voice and was oddly touched.
“Nah, we’re safe in here. When I’m quiet for a while she will just start scratching at the walls again.” He sighed and then continued, “How do you know they are dead Little?” He asked again. This time his voice was considerably calmer.
“Your Dad pulled up to the house at about eight, I was up here in the attic and I can see your whole house from here. When he got out of the car he was stumbling. Kyle I could see red all over the front of his shirt.” She stopped and Kyle thought that she was trying to decide how to continue.
“Just tell me Scarlet … please.” He said.
“Kye, your Mom came out of the front door and took him by the arm. She led him into the house. About 20 minutes later I heard screaming.” She was sobbing now and Kyle yearned to tell her that she didn’t need to continue, but he needed to hear the rest so he waited a few seconds and she finished the horrid tale. “The screams lasted for a few minutes and then I heard a gunshot. That was the last thing I heard Kyle, and I never saw anything else I swear. The house has stayed dark the entire time and the power is on in the entire neighborhood.” She sounded relieved to have gotten that information off of her chest.
His mother owned a .40 caliber Sig Saur that she carried with her when she was working. She’d told them for years that the craziest people she ever met were via the real estate business. She was a crack shot and was so enamored that she insisted that the entire family learn how to shoot. His dad and Jennifer were mediocre shots but Kyle was quite good, it’d been one of the few interests that he and his mother had shared.
“Thank you, Scarlet.” He said.
“For what?” She asked sounding confused.
“For telling me, not knowing would have been a thousand times worse than knowing.” He thought for a second then asked a question. “Have you heard from Jennifer? Do you know the name of the guy she was going to see today and where they were going?”
“Not since this morning.” She sounded a little evasive, and Kyle knew that something was going on behind his back. Probably been going on for quite a while, he thought.
“What aren’t you telling me?” He was getting a little irritated this was not the time for stupid teenage bullshit.
“Look Kye … I promised I wouldn’t tell. She’s my best friend.” She was hesitating and for a second he heard that scared little girl of so many years ago in her voice. Not the brave and confident young woman that she had turned into.
“Little, for the love of Christ what aren’t you telling me?” He was yelling now. Outside of the restroom Jackie began moaning and pounding with renewed vigor.
She was crying on the other end of the connection. Kyle pushed down a nearly overwhelming desire to tell her it was OK and that he was sorry that he made her cry. Instead he allowed her to cry and remained quiet until she regained enough composure to tell him what he needed to know.
“She’s pregnant Kyle. She had a doctor’s appointment today.” Scarlet’s voice went flat and emotionless as she made the pronouncement.
He couldn’t speak. It was as if he’d been hit square in the sternum with a hammer. He refused to believe what he’d just been told. Much like a small child that did not want to hear that he couldn’t have another cookie he wanted to run around screaming “NO” at the top of his lungs while throwing things at everyone within reach. But he did none of these things, very calmly and deliberately he spoke into the small handheld device that now seemed to be as heavy as a cinder block.
“How long has she known about this?” was all that he asked.
“Three months.” The response didn’t come from the other end of the phone but from the other side of the small restroom. Benny’s eyes were open and focused on his best friend. They were eyes filled with fear and determination. “We have known for three months, but she is closer to four months along.”
Scarlet spoke up, “Is that Benny? Kyle is he okay?” she sounded anxious.
Perhaps, Kyle thought vaguely and with no real passion, because you think I am going to kill him. He shook his head to get his longish bangs out of his eyes, and then he spoke into the phone while he looked at Benny, “Scarlet, do you think you will be safe for a while?”
“I guess.” She said and then quickly added, “But I can’t stay here, I am going to have to leave soon.” She was terrified and all of that fear was coming back to her now that her revelation of Jennifer’s secret was finished.
Resolution firmed in Kyle’s mind and he knew what he was going to have to do, just thinking it made him want to throw up and filled him with the old fears. He was ashamed for feeling that way but he had no way fix it, instead he said, “Just stay hidden for a few hours. I’m coming for you.”
On the other end of the phone he heard her begin to weep.
5
3:00am EST
Kyle hung up the phone and he and his best friend, the person that was like a brother to him, stared at one another. Benny looked puffy and swollen but his eyes were fully awake and clear. Kyle felt tired and ill, this was not the right time or the right place for a conversation like this.
They continued to stare for a full minute before Benny finally said, “Are you going to say anything or not Kye?”
“I am trying to figure out where to begin.” Kyle said. He didn’t feel mad, just a little hurt that both his sister and his best friend had hidden something of this magnitude from him for so long.
“Just ask me Kyle.” Benny said.
“Is it yours?” Kyle finally asked.
“Yes.” It was only one word but he packed a hell of a lot into it. Kyle could hear the pride that Benny obviously felt.
“How long have you two been … doing it?” Kyle asked, blushing furiously. The image that came to his mind of Benny and Jennifer made him want to laugh, scream, and be sick all at the same time.
Benny chuckled softly, “We aren’t just doing it Kyle. We’re together.” Benny must have seen the shock in Kyle’s face because he continued, “Jen and I have been together for a year. Look man, I love her and she loves me.”
“How the fuck am I just now finding out about this!” Kyle finally yelled at Benny. Outside the door Jackie started wailing. “Shut up you bitch!” Kyle screamed at the door. Of course this only encouraged her yet again.
“Kye, I wanted to tell you, but Jen kept saying that if you knew and your Mom found out she would really hammer you. She begged me not to tell you and what the hell was I supposed to do, man? Nobody has ever made me feel the way she makes me feel.” He was pleading with Kyle now.
“But for a fucking year Ben?” Kyle whispered.
“We were going to tell you. Then she got pregnant and we didn’t know what to do. Man you know your Mom. She hates me and will fucking kill me and probably disown Jen in the bargain. We didn’t know what to do. She turns 18 in less than two months. We are planning on moving in together when she does.” Benny attempte
d to sit up but then his face was washed out with exertion and he lie back down on the cold tiles. Kyle wanted to help him but he was still a little too upset to make the effort, when he saw the pained expression on Benny’s face, he wished he had made the effort.
Kyle vaguely thought to himself that his mother probably wouldn’t be a problem for them now but made no comment. The idea that his mom and dad were perhaps bumping around his home like Jackie was banging around the breakroom made him want to scream.
“Kye it’s a girl, we just found out. We are going to name her Tina.” The joy in his voice would have been clear to anyone that happened to hear him.
“Tina …” Kyle breathed and his voice caught for a second. That would have really pissed Mom off, nobody had been allowed to even mention Tina’s name for years. When he’d been ten, she caught him and Jenny talking about her and been so mad that she grounded him to his room for a week. But now if Jenny was still alive, she has to be alive, he thought to himself. There would be another Tina.
“Yeah man. Look I want to marry Jen but she said I can’t even ask her until I finish school.” He looked a bit peeved and embarrassed at that admission.
“So that’s why you started back to school!” Kyle barked out. Now he was grinning.
“Yeah” now the smile on Benny’s swollen face looked like it would split his head into two pieces. “But Kye, how the fuck are we going to get out of here? And how are we going to get Scarlet? And how the fuck are we going to find Jen?” He asked and the apt but vulgar questions sucked all of the burgeoning joy from the room.
Kyle looked at his friend, who would gods willing one day be his brother in fact as well as theory, and a hard look settled on his young battered face. “I have an idea.”
6
3:25am EST
When she finally moved to the other side of the breakroom Kyle knew that it was now or never. He gently eased the restroom door open and peeked his head around the corner. Jackie was on the other side of the room uselessly pushing on the emergency door, she was just not making sufficient contact with the release bar to open the door and allow her to leave the store. Kyle eased his way out and began to tip toe toward the fire extinguisher that Mel had dropped on the floor.
Jackie spun her bloated face around and looked right at him. She began to moan. Then she started to stumble toward him, knocking chairs out of the way as she did.
“Hurry up Kye!” Benny called out from the open restroom. Jackie stopped for a second to look at the source of the noise and that was all of the time that Kyle needed to make it to the fallen red cylinder and scoop it up off of the floor.
She was steadily closing the distance between them and Kyle felt himself beginning to panic. Instead of simply hitting her across the head as hard as he could he pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher, aimed the nozzle square at her face, and pressed trigger. Freezing carbon dioxide gas assaulted her already dead flesh and Kyle could see the surface of her face and her eyes begin to swell as they froze. Still Jackie kept advancing toward him and Kyle backed up a step at a time as he emptied the contents of the extinguisher on her. Just as the pressure was dissipating he felt his back strike the cinder block wall of the break room.
He was trapped.
“Quit playing with yourself and fucking hit her already!” Benny yelled.
Once again she turned her head toward the sound of Benny’s voice, except that this time pieces of frozen flesh fell off of her face in the process. Kyle raised the extinguisher up over his head while she was momentarily stopped, and brought it crashing down with all of the force he could bring to bear. She fell to the ground with a satisfying crunch and thud.
Kyle was breathing hard when Benny limped out of the restroom and walked up to stand next to him. The breakroom was quiet for the first time in hours. Except for the quiet hum of the television now only broadcasting an image stating that the network was experiencing technical difficulties and they should stand by.
“Now we get the fuck out of here.” Kyle said and they both headed for the door leading to the sales floor.
The sight that greeted them as they reached the very front of the store left them both speechless. Outside they could see dozens of human shapes stumbling around the Toys “R” Us parking lot and the roads around the store. In the distance the view that they were afforded of Interstate 75 showed them stalled and burning cars scattered across the blacktop. Every few minutes a lone or a pair of vehicles would weave their way through the obstacles heading north or south.
“This is really fucking bad isn’t it, Kye?” Benny asked in a whisper. They were both entranced by the Risen Dead form of their former manager and boss Mike Haehl stumbling and shuffling around the parking lot his pistol still gripped in his cold dead hand.
“Poor Mike,” Kyle said. He was a good guy and did not fucking deserve this.
“Nothing we can do about it brother.” Benny said.
“It would be nice to have that gun though.” Kyle said longingly.
“Yeah, but you’re the only one that would be any good with it. You know that I can’t shoot for shit.” Benny laughed. Kyle knew he was thinking about the time that Kyle’s mom had taken Benny along when she and Kyle had gone shooting. Benny had been just awful.
“True,” Kyle said looking around. He walked over to the emergency fire station by the manager’s office and opened the steel door. Inside was fifty feet of fire hose hooked into the sprinkler system, two fire extinguishers, and a four foot fire axe. He hefted the fire axe off of the hooks and walked toward the side door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing Kye?” Benny demanded.
“They are really spread out, out there. I need you to watch the door and close it behind me when I get back.” He unlocked the door and stepped out before Benny could stop him.
The air outside of the store was bitingly cold. It smelled of smoke and fire. In the distance Kyle could hear sirens and gunshots and all around he could hear the moans of the Dead. The parking lot lights illuminated less than 20 walking corpses. Kyle took a deep breath and broke into a run toward the man that had been his friend.
The Risen Dead moaned as they noticed Kyle. He could feel his stomach doing flip flops as the distance between himself and Mike disappeared. As he got within five feet he stopped and looked at Mike, “Sorry boss,” he said then brought the spike side of the axe head down on Mike’s skull. His arm vibrated as the spike penetrated Mike’s skull and the corpse of the man dropped.
Kyle dropped to the ground himself and pried the revolver from Mike’s fist. He knew that the other Risen Dead were closing on him but he took the seconds to fish into Mike’s pocket for the store’s master key and the box of extra shells for the gun. He slid the gun into his waist band and rose to run back to the store. Between himself and the store was the dead and moaning form of Carlos Boyd.
“Oh you mother fucker.” Kyle said to the dead man. Then he lifted the axe and advanced on the moaning form. Carlos reached for Kyle but he never had a chance as Kyle lowered the blade side of the axe into the top of Carlos’s skull. The force of the blow alone drove the dead man to the ground spilling brain matter and coagulated blood on the asphalt. The axe stuck in the man’s head and Kyle took a minute to plant his foot on Carlos’s shoulder and freed his weapon.
Kyle was denied any time to revel in his victory over Carlos. The moans behind him were getting louder and closer. He hurried back to the door. As he entered, Benny slammed and locked the door behind him. As soon as the door was sealed behind him Kyle dropped to his knees and vomited the Coca-Cola tinged water that he had drunk earlier all over the tiled floor.
“Kye man, are you gonna be OK?” Benny asked, placing a warm hand firmly on Kyle’s shaking shoulders. Kyle reached up and briefly squeezed his best friends hand before he spoke.
“I’ve never killed anyone before.” He whispered as spit dripped from his lower lip like a wet and glistening piece of spider’s silk.
“He was alre
ady dead, Kye.” Benny said.
Before either of them could say anything else they heard the sounds of fists banging on the steel side door that Kyle had used. The fists of dozens of the Risen Dead pounded over and over, with the moans that they all seemed to use as their primary form of communication only slightly less loud in intensity.
“We need to hurry,” Kyle said. Then he got up off the floor and loaded the cylinder of the revolver before they set to work preparing to leave the relative safety of the store and enter night that belonged to the Dead.